1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to aerospace aviation and more particularly to a method and apparatus for dynamically displaying test flight data.
2. Background Art
Test flight data is currently not readily available for dynamic display on aircraft or for relay via radio telemetry without cumbersome and expensive equipment. The traditional cycle of configuring test parameters, taking these to flight for execution, and performance of post flight data analysis is necessary, but insufficient to integrate and verify complex modern systems in a cost-effective manner. Diagnostic procedure complexity is hindered by physical space/memory available for test data collection. Since the adoption of advanced processing equipment on-board aircraft the need for dynamic data collection has existed and will continue to escalate with increased sophistication of the aircraft computing systems.
A prior art system, which collects flight data that is preprogrammed on the ground in the 1553 PASS-1000, from SBS Technologies. This system requires a large pallet of flight test data equipment. In utilizing this system, the users must fly the aircraft again with a different set of data variables to change parameters. The recording equipment is costly, cumbersome, and impractical for space-limited aircraft. In addition, flight test is constrained to the number of pallets of equipment available.
The 1553 PASS-1000 is an avionics bus analyzer. It is a collection of software and hardware (system) that allows for recording of bulk data on an avionics bus. The present invention differs from the prior art, in that the data being output of the serial avionics bus is dynamically user selectable, by communicating to the resident application on the flight computer. The 1553 PASS-1000 on the other hand is static in nature, more along the lines of a data recorder.
The present invention provides a dynamic means for memory read-out and persistence (on-board or remote) of flight data and utilizes a standard interface to a Read Access Partition of a flight computer to enable in-flight test data output. Within this superiority, the invention can be (re)programmed in-flight which will enable real-time decisions concerning both test scenario suite and the content of collected data by delivering light-weight hardware needs which maximizes the possible target aircraft and allows commercial off-the-shelf components to maintain a low deliverable cost by promoting rapid acceptance. This strategy is also portable across any ARNIC-653 compliant flight computer system, and is extendible to support radio telemetry initiated configurations. Monitoring flight data on an airborne aircraft via an on-board device connected to one or more serial data busses is a current practice in the avionics industry. However, the ability to dynamically select what data is being collected is a novel and unique concept. Also, the use of an external MRO device, communicating with the flight computer via radio broadcasts and collecting/displaying data on the ground during a flight test is novel to this design.